InsightsonSportingDevelopments

Broadcasting

Last week, Sports Shorts reported on how the top European football leagues were dealing with the completion of their 2019/2020 seasons as a result of Covid-19. Since then we have seen the much anticipated return of Germany’s Bundesliga (over the weekend just passed), which benefited from record viewership. The K-League 1 (the “K-League”), South Korea’s … Continue Reading

Italian football Last weekend, four Serie A fixtures were suspended. This weekend, five Serie A fixtures taking place in affected territories in the north of Italy will be played behind closed doors in response to a new decree passed by the Italian government. This will have a direct impact on the clubs’ revenue. Clubs will … Continue Reading

Last year, Sports Shorts reported on proposals for a combined Dutch and Belgian football league – a so-called ‘BeneLiga’. Talks of a merger appear to be gathering pace in the early part of this year, with Inside World Football reporting that a meeting recently took place between the Belgian and Dutch footballing authorities, alongside eleven … Continue Reading

Adrian Wojnarowski and Zach Lowe dropped, what is known as a Woj Bomb, last week as they announced that the NBA is in high level discussions with the NBPA (the National Basketball Players Association) and broadcasting partners concerning “sweeping and dramatic changes to the league calendar that include a reseeding of the four conference finalists, … Continue Reading

The gender pay gap debate continues in business as it has for a number of years. Confusion surrounding the topic remains widespread with many conflating it with equal pay and others denying its existence entirely. Companies in the UK are now publishing their latest gender pay gap figures and the data reveals that men are … Continue Reading

World Rugby has abandoned its plans to launch a new Nations Championship competition after failing to get the necessary support for the project. World Rugby required unanimous backing from the ten nations who comprise the Six Nations and the Rugby Championship by 19 June 2019, however this was never achieved. Sports Shorts previously discussed the … Continue Reading

Between 2016 and 2019 the Premier League was paid a record breaking £5 billion for UK rights by broadcasters for 168 games a season. A new deal, effective from 2019 to 2022, will see the Premier League make at least £4.46 billion from the UK rights to broadcast matches (with one broadcaster not disclosing how … Continue Reading

As part of a continuous attempt to move away from geoblocking and towards a Digital Single Market (“DSM”), the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council agreed, last 13 December 2018, to facilitate access to sports radio content within the new EU broadcasting rules, a move which the Premier League has criticised. This … Continue Reading

When French sixth-tier side Avant Garde Caennaise (“AG Caen”) were founded in 1902, even the most forward-thinking supporters could not have imagined that the club would become the pioneers that they are today. The Project Two thousand fans currently manage the team, making decisions such as the team’s line up and substitutions, via a third … Continue Reading

UEFA recently announced that it will be launching its own over the top (“OTT”) streaming platform within the next few months. When the provisionally named ‘UEFA TV’ goes live in time for the 2019/20 season, it will allow fans outside of Europe and North America to view Euro 2020 and future editions of the UEFA … Continue Reading

“The richest athlete contract in sports history”. That is how ESPN described the deal between boxer Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and streaming service DAZN, which is worth a reported $365 million for 11 fights. The agreement with Canelo sits alongside a broader “exclusive” partnership between DAZN and Canelo’s promoter, Golden Boy Promotions, which is due to … Continue Reading

Eleven Sports, the global sports provider, has contravened UEFA rules, which prohibit live coverage of football in the UK between 14:45 and 17:15 on Saturdays by broadcasting Barcelona’s La Liga fixture against Athletic Bilbao. This period on a Saturday afternoon is commonly referred to as the football “blackout” as the UK does not broadcast any matches during … Continue Reading

Last year, Sports Shorts covered the emergence of the first “live blocking injunctions”, which were obtained by the Premier League both in respect of the final portion of the 2016/17 season (in a test case before the High Court in March 2017) and subsequently in respect of the entire 2017/18 season. The blocking injunctions require … Continue Reading

Recently, rugby legend Dan Carter made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. After being pulled over by the police on Avenue des Champs-Élysées for speeding, police discovered that he was over the alcohol limit. He was subsequently dropped by his sponsor Land Rover for what seems to be a breach of a morality clause, … Continue Reading

The Court of Appeal has recently handed down judgment in the latest in a line of cases relating to the showing of Premier League football matches in UK pubs using foreign satellite decoder cards. The Court of Appeal found in favour of the Premier League, confirming that unauthorised use of a decoder card licensed for … Continue Reading

English fans of Spanish football may have been disappointed this weekend not to find El Clásico, the match between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, in their TV guides. The match kicked off at 3:15pm UK time and finished 1 – 1, with honours even, but was not shown on English television. While El Clásico represents one … Continue Reading

This weekend saw the return of one of World sport’s genuine megastars. Eldrick “Tiger” Woods, now 40 years old and the World number 897, made a comeback from injury after 466 days without playing a tournament at his own Hero World Challenge, at the Albany course in the Bahamas. Woods’s achievements are well known. He … Continue Reading

On Monday (28 November), the European Council announced that it has agreed a general approach to a draft regulation to prohibit “unjustified geoblocking” between member states, including confirmation that the regulation should not apply to sports broadcasts. The draft regulation formed part of the proposals adopted by the Commission earlier this year on the Digital … Continue Reading

It will be well known to the readers of this blog that media companies will pay eye watering amounts of money for the rights to broadcast major sporting events. It is reported that the most valuable of these deals are as follows: $5.3 billion per year for the NFL. $2.7 billion per year for the … Continue Reading

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